Friday, January 28, 2011

Dickuidiot on Alaska Caravan #3 of 4

Here we are, half way through our Alaskan Caravan. So far we have enjoyed ourselves very much.By now we all are on first name basis with each other. " Can man" Jack , the guy designated to collect a 25 cent fine off anyone caught without a name tag has made an occasional report on the excuses people have given for not wearing their name tag. Lot of humorous reasons. You can also get fined 25 cents for getting lost on your way to your new campground, after all, you have the direction with you.( It has cost me 50 cents already. I followed people once who turned out to be strangers), I soon learned to read my own directions and things got better....Stay with me,I have two blogs, counting this one, to go. I hope that you are having as much fun reading these blogs as I have had re-living them.
I wondered why the baseball kept getting larger.......Then it hit me.

6/97) We are leaving Rivers edge RV Park, Fairbanks, Ak. - for - Mc Kinley RV & Campground, Denali, Ak. We had to streach out this 111 mile trip because we could not check in until after 2:00 pm. This is the first time that Jaye has ever traveled with us in the 5th wheel. I hope that the back seat in our extended cab truck isn't too uncomfortable, not much leg room. She didn't complain, just put on a big happy smile. She is a daddy's girl, the rougher, the better! In the evening the Campground had an ice cream social for us so they could explain the hot water tokens and cover the trip to Denali National Park tomorrow. We were suppose to go to "Cabin Nite" tonight but for some reason they could not take us, so we will go tomorrow , after our Denali trip. That should be a full day for us.>

(7/7/97) We got up at 3:30 am this morning so that we could board the campground bus to take us into Denali National Park Tour Buses. They had tickets for three different buses which they gave out to us last night. One at 5:30 am (no way), one for 6:00 am(don't think so), and one for 6:30 am (thats better). We gotour 6:30 am National Park Bus...but we still had to take the 5:00 am bus to drive the 12 miles into where the Tour buses were.. The Park Tour is 66 miles long.

Dall Sheep Rams

The McKinley we did not see

The Mt. McKinley you don't see in summer! The animals did not co- operate with us at all. We saw a few Caribou in the distance and some Dall Sheep on the side of the mountain. (so says our bus driver). It rained a little and clouded up a lot. All in all, this was not a very sucessful Mt. McKinley trip. On the way back from our failed attempt to see the mountain, the bus driver conceded that Mt. McKinley stays clouded over most of the summer. If you want to see the peak, come in the winter time. After we got back to the campground they gave us an hour to get ready, then boarded us onto the bus to go to "Cabin Night" down the road. That is an all you can eat dinner at long tables. seating ten people each

Jaye & Dad at Cabin night

Jaye & Her toy sled Dog

The waiters and waitresses put on the show as well as wait on us. It was a 1930's type of show and it was a lot of fun. Jaye was our "Head Table Person" for our table and Charlie was our waiter. When we wanted something at our table, Jaye would stand up and circle her napkin over her head yelling as loud as she could, "hey Charlie" until Charlie came running and got us what we needed! This was a fantastically enjoyable outing!>

(7/8/97) We are leaving McKinley RV & Campground, Denali, Alaska - for - Golden Nugget Camper Park, Anchorage, Alaska. We planned to leave between 9:30 am & 10:00am because we can't check in until after 3:00 am. We are so prepared when it comes to traveling that we couldn't stall any more past 9:30 am. We had a pleasant trip down to Anchorage. No sight of "Mt. McKinley because of all the clouds. We were hoping for a break in the cloud cover. Sometimes it can be seen from Anchorage. We will see! The south side of the mountain is usually the clearer side because Denali itself will cause bad weather as the easterly winds go across it. Bob and Betty's CB set worked for them coming into Anchorage. We have a nice site with full hook-ups. Lois is still in the Anchorage Hospital where they took her last night. She has had a "MIR" and they still don't know whats wrong with her. What a vacation for her!>

(7/9/97) At 9:00 am we all boarded a nice new motor coach (bus) for our city tour of Anchorage which is a little over 250,000 population. It is a' some-what new city' which has expanded very rapidly and is mostly two story structures spread out over a wide area. There are a few tall buildings up to the code limit of 22 stories. There is one at 24 stories , that some how got past the restrictions. The people here have not forgotten the 1964 earthquake which flatten the city, A lot of the city is built on clay which liquified during the 9.1 (Richter scale) quake. This quake makes up a large part of Anchorages history. The tour through town was interesting. There are quite a few buildings with murals painted on building walls. And there are flowers everywhere to cheer everyone up.

Portage Glacier

lots of flowers everywhere. After eight cold winter months, they plant flowers everywhere to bring out some "cheerfulness"as soon as they can. The city is the biggest promoter. With the long hours of sunshine, everything grows larger than what we are use to seeing . We had lunch at the Soursough Mining Company Restaurant and I have never had Haliburt cooked as good as that. After lunch we went across the parking lot to the "Alaska Wild Berry Products Store" for a short tour. Jams, Jelly & Chocolates. Free sample of chocolates. Its like dying and going to chocolate heaven. Plenty of free chocolates samples. After we returned from the tour, we drove to the main post office next to the air port, to pick up our mail (of course the general delivery mail doesn't go here , but to the P.O. up town at the mall).>

(7/10/97) This is an off day. I picked up Bob Keller and we headed to the mall up town. We had a hard time finding a parking place. No mail. Drove over to "Fred Myers", (same type store as Wal-Marts) to get Jayes photos processed and buy a few items. We will pick up the photos tomorrow.This is a big store. I noticed that they had several water valves located at various places around the parking lot fence and several RV's that I assumed were over nighting (?). Big parking lot. Tonight a group of us got together on our own, and had dinner at the Sea Galley, a great restaurant but pricey. King Crab Claws ($25.95/per lb). We had a lot of fun there.>

(7/11/97) Up early for the Portage Glacier Tour. We boarded our motor coach bus at 8:30 am and headfor Portage Glacier. This is where we are to board the MV PATRMIGAN at 10:30 am for a one-hour cruise on Portage Lake to Portage Glacier, It is raining and cold. We put on warm clothes. Got a cup of hot coffee at the boat terminal and got aboard, The 1 1/2 hour trip from the campground to the boat would have been great, if we could have seen through the low clouds. The boat cruise spent most of the time around the Glacier. They had a tour guide on board to explain glaciers and to answer any questions. Most people thought that the Glacier showed up better without bright sunlight on it . On the way back we stopped at a small diner and had a good lunch . Next we stopped at "Alyeska, a winter ski Resort, The shops there stay open year around, so most everyone shopped. After we got back to our RV, Jaye had to prepare to leave at 6:30 am tomorrow morning. Eleven days certainly do go by fast when you have someone special with you!>

(7/12/97) We are leaving Golden Nugget Camper Park, Anchorage, Alaska - for - Homer Spit Campground, Homer, Alaska. We were up at 4:30 am to get Jaye to the Anchorage Airport by 6:00 am. Her plane leaves at 6:45 am. She is very special to us. We had a very quiet ride back to the Campground. We fueled up before we got back to the campground. We got behind our leader Grant, going out the gate and soon lost him. Grant has this urge to be the first one on the road and the first to check into the new campground. Mostly we let just him go. Just because he likes to lead doesn't mean that we will follow. If we catch up with him fine, if not, thats ok too. We didn't see Grant again until we got to Homer. It rained most of the way, with some fog thrown in. We found the Campground and Carl had saved us a large end lot. Electric only. We can handle that for two days ok.

Homer Spit Campground

> (7/13/97) Today is an off day. Eleven days of making sure Jaye got to see everything possible has worn us out. We slept in this morning. We fueled up and drove around Homer and Homer Spit..Boy are they ever set up to take care of the tourist, and are there a lot of tourist here to be taken....care of. Some of our group went Halibut fishing and Dale caught a 93 lb Halibut. He had most of it processed, quick-froze and mailed home. but he did save out enough to have a big cook-out for who ever wanted to attend. We had just finished dinner, so we passed it up. Do you know that the only Halibut I ever saw until this year was in a fish market. It is nothing but a great big grown up Flounder, and I mean really,really grown up really big and it tastes so good.

Three Sea Otters

(8/14/98) We are leaving Homer Spit Campground, Homer,Alaska - for - City Park of Seward , Seward , Alaska. We got away by 9:00 am as planned. We followed Grant & Barbara and Bob & Betty out of the campground. Ten miles down the road, it was just us and the dust. I do not intend to travel over 55 mph towing our 36 ft- 5th wheel RV, that is unless we are getting up speed for a hill up ahead. It was a long and wet and wet drive. We stopped for lunch at a place that made these large great smelling cinnamon rolls. After lunch, we bought six large great smelling cinnamon rolls for breakfast ( if they make it that far). We arrived at the City Park of Seward, and was given a site. This should be interesting. We are just off the beach with nothing but water ahead of us. Absolutely no kind of a hook-up anywhere with two days of camping. "Do not" turn on anything that you do not need. (It is times like these that I wished I had bought that generator that I said I didn't need!)....But the view is great.

(7/15/97) Well, we survived the first day of 'no hook-ups'. It was a good thing that we got the heater repaired because it was cold and it rained all night, This morning it cleared up by noon time into a very nice day. Grant & Barbara and a few other rigs pulled out early this morning for Anchorage. They didn't enjoy the lack of hook-ups-even for the view. They also missed out on 6 hour cruise down to the Gulf of Alaska and back. What a cruise. It was the best by far of any cruise that we have had on this caravan . The weather co-operated and turned into a beautiful day. We had no sooner got started when we came across three sea otters laying on their backs eating. We didn't bother them a bit moving up close to get a better look. When did leave, we sighted some small whales close by. As we moved out into Resurrection bay and around the rocky islands we sighted hundreds of puffins. We made our way down to Aialik Cape and around to Holgate Glacier. We had dolphins playing in bow wave. As we arrived at Holgate Glacier we saw several Glaciers of different sizes. We didn't see any "calfing " while we were there. On our way back we saw several pods of humpback whales. They are hard to video tape because when they dive, you can not predict where they will come up. All-in-all, it was a great day.

(8/16/98) We are leaving City Park of Seward, Seward, Alaska - for - Homestead RV Park, Palmer, Alaska. Murphy has not left us yet. As we were getting ready to leave the campground this morning, we noticed how slow the slideout moved in. When we tried to lift the front of the RV high enough to back the truck under to connect them, the batteries completely pooped out. We used the hand crank to finish the hook-up. We drove down to the Sears Roebuck Store in Anchorage where they changed them out.(they were around 4 yrs old so I bought two new deep cycle batteries). Now we have all new batteries and all new tires on the RV. We were the next to last one to check into the campground (again). Our group had a pot luck dinner tonight with the halibut being the main protein served. Everything was great. I am coming down with a head cold (I think). I took a hot shower, vicked up, took an Advil PM and went to bed early. June went to the musical Narrative about the Matanuska Colonists, put on by the campground. She said that was good, but being outside, it was cold and breezy.

(7/17/97) I got a good nights sleep last hight. I got up some what later than usual. We drove into Palmer and found a service station that sold diesel and LP gas. We fueled up on diesel and had our LP cylinder filled. We bought a few groceries and returned to the RV. We put the LP cylinder back in place and hooked it up. At 3:45 pm we are taking a bus to tour the "Musk-Ox" farm near here.Musk Ox in Defensive Circle They are the animals that surround their young to protect them when there is a threat. It is quite effective against the wolves, but not worth a darn against the hunters who simply shot them while they stood there. Of course they were completely wiped out in the early 1900's. The ones they are raising here now have been imported from Canada, Greenland and Russia (I think). During the 1930's the government moved some poor people to this area and subsidized them until they could provide a living for themselves. This evening the campground hosted dinner at a restaurant, This has been a pretty good day. I topped off our fresh water tank and hauled off about 20 gallons of grey water in our 30 gallon tote tank .

A good joke for today!The Pastor's AssThe Pastor entered his donkey in a race and it won. The Pastor was so pleased with his donkey that he entered it in another race, and it won again. The local paper read: Pastor's ass out front.The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the Pastor not to enter the donkey in in another race. The next day the local paper headline read: Bishop scratches Pastor's ass.This was too much for the Bishop so he ordered the Pastor to get rid of the donkey. The Pastor decided to give it to a Nun in a nearby Convent. The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headlines the next day: Nun has best ass in town.The Bishop fainted. He informed the Nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey so she sold it to a farmer for $10. The next day the paper read: Nun sells ass for $10.This was too much for the Bishop so he ordered the Nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild. The next day the paper read: Nun announces her ass is wild and free.The bishop was buried the next day. The moral of the story is....being concerned about public opinion can bring you much grief and misery ....even shorten your life. Stop worring about everyone else's ass and you'll be a lot happier and live longer. Have a nice day !